The meeting at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium, will focus on Transport, Energy, and Agricultural Policy in the light of dependence of increasingly expensive oil, and the meeting at the Walloon Parliament in Namur, Belgium, will focus on regional planning and financial stability in an era of high oil prices. These provide one of the first events where politicians at the Belgian and European level will discuss together about Peakoil and its impacts. Both meetings are part of the 9th conference of the Association for the Study of Peakoil & Gas that will be held from 27-29 April 2011. The main conference gives the latest scientific basis on these and additional energy topics, while the Parliamentary meetings provides the stage for an in-depth political discussion. To register for these meetings the procedure via the main conference website needs to be followed.

Program for the meeting at the European Parliament in Brussels (03 May 2011 – 08:30 – 12:30)

Part I: Peak Oil Evidence and Peak Oil Activities in different EU Member States
– Kjell Aleklett, President of ASPO, Head Global Energy Systems Group Uppsala University
– UK Industry Task Force on peak Oil and Energy Security (To be Confirmed)
– Lord Ron Oxburgh, House of Lords UK Parliament, former chairman of Shell
– Michel Lebrun, Vice-President of the Belgian Walloon Parliament

Debate with Members of the EU Parliament
– Claude Turmes, MEP, Groups of the Greens/European Free Alliance in the European Parliament,
– Udo Bullmann, MEP, Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament (to be confirmed)
– Joseph Daul, MEP, Group of the European People’s Party in the European Parliament (to be confirmed)

What role for R&D in solving the peak oil issue?
– How to valorise research on the effects of peak oil for urban planning? – Susan Krumdieck, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
– An analysis of the peak oil effects for the Walloon territory – Thierry Bréchet, UCL, Belgium
– Debating Scarcity: critical social science meets peak oil – Gavin Bridge, The University of Manchester, UK

Peakoil and Finance
– Title to be announced – Prof. Dr. Jean-Marie Chevalier, University of Paris-Dauphine, Director of the Centre de Geopolitique de l’Energie et des Matieres Premieres.
– The effects of triple digit oil prices on the economy – Jeff Rubin, Author, former Chief Economist Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce
– Potential Impacts of Peak Oil on Financial Markets – Erik Townsend, former CEO of The Cushing Group, Private investor